Automakers Aren't Going To Build Kei Cars In The U.S., No Matter What King Trump Commands

President Donald Trump took a field trip to newly MAGAfied Japan recently, where he apparently spotted something he'd never noticed before: Kei cars. Little keijidosha are everywhere in Japan, cars and vans and trucks all boxed in by limits on their engine displacement and exterior size — yet encouraged by the country's tax system, where kei cars are cheaper to own. We don't have such a tax structure here in the U.S., yet it seems our president is now very, very interested in making kei cars work in the States. 

Trump talked to reporters at the White House this week about getting rid of those pesky fuel economy standards, but veered off into talking about tangentially related topics that interested him. This time we got the topic of kei cars, which he called "very small" and "really cute" according to Bloomberg. Trump then claimed that "We're not allowed to make them in this country" (a claim that has more to do with crashworthiness standards than emissions, though modern kei cars crash similarly to non-kei vehicles) and that "We're gonna approve those cars." Then, just last night, Trump took to Truth Social to announce he'd done it — "TINY CARS" are now "approved" for construction on American soil. Again, no clear definition as to what that actually means, and what laws (if any) have been changed to accommodate kei-class vehicles. 

Now, to be clear, there is no legal American ban on the production of kei cars. If the President of the United States is talking about specifically exempting kei-class vehicles from any existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards that they may not meet, that would be truly absurd and unlikely, but at least it's sort of within his power — the Department of Transportation is a department of the Executive branch, after all. It's also unlikely that Trump is talking about the kinds of 25-year-law-compliant kei cars that we enthusiasts love to import. He was just in Japan, so he'd be seeing modern Honda N-Ones, Nissan Sakuras, and Honda S660s rather than the older models we know and love. 

Listen, I like a kei car as much as the next gearhead girl, but it just ain't going to happen. If Trump wants to know where all the smaller cars on U.S. roads went, he should look to Republican's favorite chestnut, the free market. Automakers are free to build whatever cars they want, and they build the ones that make them the most money: The kinds of giant, profit-rich, small-car crushers that even the Biden-era CAFE regulations encourage. There just isn't enough shareholder value in making small affordable cars. Something like a base Daihatsu Hijet pickup costs $6,623 in Japan, and that's including tax. U.S. Auto CEOs Mary Barra, Antonio Filosa and Jim Farley would all get their walking papers if they attempted to sell something like that in the U.S. 

Since Trump also gave automotive companies the green light to build even worse gas-burners this week, we probably won't be seeing smaller cars making their way to market. Also, could you imagine kei cars sharing the roads with behemoths like the Ford F-250 or the Chevy Silverado? We have had over a decade of proliferation of vehicles where the drivers can't see for multiple feet beyond the hood. The psychology of buying such a diminutive vehicle while sharing the road with the likes of an Escalade or a Jeep Grand Cherokee L would put off most of your average joe consumers. Even if automakers turned a complete about face and started building tiny cars again, development of such vehicles–design, testing, retooling, product launch–will take years. It's not something that will happen with a pen stroke. 

If Trump did develop a tax and legal structure in the United States that encouraged smaller, more practical, more efficient cars over the lumbering behemoths we have now, that would be a fantastic face turn from the President. Given that such a move would fly entirely in the face of every other choice he's ever made in his political career, though, I wouldn't hold my breath for it. We can dream of an America replete with kei cars — I often do, as a woman who was shopping for them just yesterday — but they're unlikely to be anything more than dreams.